Infinite Flow Dance

I'm applying to The Elevate Prize because I would like to take Infinite Flow’s impact and systemic change efforts to the next level. This may include:

• A multi-city tour, where at each city we organize public performances, community flashmobs, school assemblies, and training workshops for dance educators, artists, and creatives - All digitally documented for on-demand use. 

• Expansion of our elementary school assembly program, both virtually and in person, reaching more youth, parents, and education professionals, nationally and internationally.

• Production of more innovative films and videos that have a lasting impact. 

I founded Infinite Flow with no seed money and minimal resources.  

Since 2015, I've brought Infinite Flow to perform at over 100 events.  We’ve partnered with Apple, Facebook, Red Bull, adidas, Kaiser Permanente, Farmer's Insurance, among others through events, fellowships, and content collaboration.  Our dance videos have been viewed by over 75 Million people on Facebook alone, and we been featured on NBC Today, ABC Good Morning America, among others.  I believe I have embarked on disruptive innovation.

Yet, we are still a small nonprofit.  I'm ready to leverage the funding, support, mentorship, and connections offered by The Elevate Prize to increase our impact.

2006, while a college student, I suffered a spinal stroke which paralyzed me from the neck down.  2 months later, I walked out of the hospital, but was still “paralyzed” on the inside.  The stroke triggered years of trauma from racism, body shaming, rejection as a ballet dancer, and sexual assault from a dance teacher who did not believe in me.  In 2010, I returned to dancing through discovering ballroom dancing, and in 2012, I moved to Los Angeles to have a fresh start to my dance career.  But I found myself again not fitting the box of the “Hollywood dancer”.  

These life experiences of continuously feeling like the “other”, eventually led me to create Infinite Flow, a professional dance company composed of dancers with and without disabilities with a mission to promote inclusion, in 2015.  My unique and creative approach to shifting culture and DEI (diversity-equity-inclusion) has been recognized in the mainstream, including being named 1 of 13 People Magazine “Women Changing the World 2021” and partnering with Apple, Facebook, adidas, Red Bull, among other major brands.  I envision a world without boxes, where every individual enjoys a sense of belonging and is celebrated for their unique qualities.

1 in 4 US adults (61 million adults) and over 1 Billion people globally have a disability.  Yet, people with disabilities (PWD) globally are stigmatized and face inequities.  Though the American Disability Act was passed in 1990, PWD continues to be socially and culturally excluded.  In the US (2018), 37.6% of U.S. civilians with disabilities ages 18-64 living in the community had a job, compared to 77.2% for people without disabilities.  Disability is also often neglected in the conversation of diversity.  Regardless of disability, 40% of people feel isolated at work and belonging is a missing ingredient in D&I conversation.  Amongst youth, children with disabilities are 2-3 times more likely to be bullied than their non-disabled peers (National Bullying Prevention Center) and children with perceived differences are more likely to end up in social isolation (StopBullying.gov)

Infinite Flow is a multi-racial professional dance company composed of dancers with and without disabilities with a mission to promote inclusion and celebrate intersectionality.  Using the power of dance and storytelling, we 

1. Dismantle stereotypes and showcase the beauty of inclusion through performance and content.  

2. Organize community experiences celebrating diversity.

3. Design learning programs for children, shaping tomorrow’s leaders.

Systemic change requires more than passing laws.  It requires cultural and social shifts. Quoting Brene Brown, “the way we move information from our heads to our hearts is through our hands''.  Using dance as a catalyst for change, Infinite Flow takes DEI out of people’s minds and into their hearts, bodies, and souls.  

Dance is a universal language that connects all of us.  Dance doesn’t discriminate and when you are dancing with someone you see beyond race, color, size, age, gender, and disability. Our performances, content, and community experiences are aimed to radically shift perceptions and start conversations that contribute towards a more inclusive world.  

Quoting Nelson Mandela, “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.”  We believe, when children are exposed to inclusion at a young age, it stays with them their whole life.  Our in-person elementary school assembly program and Scoops of Inclusion, a short film and virtual assembly program we launched while pivoting through Covid-19 show promising impact of shaping the next generation.  

Our approach to scaling is not through creating “satellites”, which causes further separation, but rather through bringing accessibility and inclusivity to existing systems, industries, and communities. 

Our vision is a world where DEI (diversity-equity-inclusion) doesn’t need to be discussed because it’s a given, and that systemic change has been made, thus we don’t need to exist anymore.  However, to get there, we must grow bigger and bolder. 

To illustrate our impact, here are some stats from our elementary school assembly program we have delivered to 5000 students K-5.  Early childhood education reform is part of our theory of change. 

Link to 1-minute video with students sharing what they learned.  

When we surveyed 60 4-5th grade students who engaged with Scoops of Inclusion, 

• 100% of students responded with “Agree” or “Strongly Agree” to the statement: “Scoops of Inclusion addresses important topics that all kids should know about.” 

• 8 was the average score to the question “On a scale from 0-10, how likely are you to recommend Scoops of Inclusion to a friend?” 

• When asked, “When you think of “disability” or “wheelchair” what are the first 3 words that come to mind?” here are some of the responses, before and after the assembly.

  • Before: sad, sorry, bad.   
    After: happy, good, talk.

  • Before: sad, disabled, nothing. 
    After: same, abled, unique.

  • Before: help, condition, pity. 
    After: fun, welcome, people.

Ongoing, our inner circle is comprised of 50-60 people between our Infinite Flow’s company artists, Infinite Flow Kids, and their families, regular creative collaborators, and other students.

In this past year (during the pandemic), we have served an additional 10,000 people who have attended virtual events, which include school assemblies, panel discussions, classes, film screenings, and performances.  For this following year, we intend to increase this number to 25,000 collectively between in-person and virtual activities. 

Voices from our community

Referring to the UN’s Disability and Development Report, people with disabilities globally “continue to face numerous barriers to their full inclusion and participation in the life of their communities”. 

Like a few ADA-compliant dance studios who have denied us from renting space as an example,  systemic change requires more than passing laws and creating new policies.  It requires cultural and social shifts.  With the bias and discrimination against people with disabilities being globally problematic, we must open more people’s hearts to accepting and welcoming people with disabilities, to ensure “no one gets left behind”. This is where our work can play a critical role. 

The 3 pillars of activities in our theory of change include

1. Dance performances that dismantle stereotypes and showcase the beauty of inclusion.

2. Community dance activities which bring people of all walks of life together, with the idea to make inclusion part of an attractive lifestyle.

3. Elementary school assemblies that shape tomorrow’s leaders.  

In all pillars, we actively create video content so we have the potential to reach infinite audiences 

Previously we measured progress through surveys.  In the future, I envision developing a method to track progress through collecting stories of impact.  

Uncertainty from pandemic

There is still uncertainty through the reopening.  As an organization whose activities were 90% in-person pre-pandemic, we’ve already had to pivot. Coming out of the pandemic, we are approaching everything with flexibility and positivity.  We will continue to operate digitally regardless. 

Savior complex and charity mindset

We’ve been asked by disability advocacy organizations to have our professional dancers perform for free.  This contradicts the goal to increase the employment of people with disabilities.  We have continually negotiated projects at market rates when working with corporations and other progressive communities.  We will continue to dismantle this archaic narrative.  

Lack of awareness

1 in 4 US adults (61 million adults) have a disability.  Yet, people with disabilities are stigmatized and face countless inequities.  Disability is also often neglected or mentioned last when addressing diversity.  Some of the greatest innovations came from designing for disability: the typewriter was invented as a result of a blind woman wanting to write a love letter; email was invented by a deaf engineer seeking to communicate at a distance with his deaf wife.  We will continue to lead by example by placing disability inclusion first and taking an intersectional approach to address inclusion.

I was initially terrified to dance with Adelfo, a paraplegic athlete new to dancing.  But after two hours came a magical moment.  I realized that dancing with Adelfo was no different from dancing with anyone else.  Dance is a universal language and DANCE DOESN’T DISCRIMINATE™.  That night all I could think of was “If the world danced, there wouldn’t be war!” and this led me to create Infinite Flow. 

Since 2015, Infinite Flow has performed 100+ times.  We’ve been featured on ABC Good Morning America, and along with (wheelchair) dance partner Piotr Iwanicki, we became the first dancers to perform at Apple’s Steve Jobs Theater. Most recently, I was named 1 of 13 People Magazine “Women Changing the World 2021”. 

Our community include

• Lourdes, born with spina bifida, who became the first disabled dancer to join her high school’s dance team. 

• Sam, who relocated her birthday party to an ADA compliant facility after participating in our flashmob.

• Amy, a frequent public speaker, who replaced the phrase “falling on deaf ears” in her speech, after seeing us perform.

Through Elevate Prize’s media campaign support, I intend to birth millions of everyday people who become agents of change.

We take an intersectional approach to promote disability inclusion and consciously work on taking D&I beyond "checking boxes" based on empathy, purpose, and creativity. 

At the core of Infinite Flow’s work are our professional dance artists.  Our artists' roles span from being performers, choreographers, teaching artists, and inclusion advocates.  We currently have 14 artists on our roster.  

• 10 artists are disabled.  Diagnoses include paraplegia, amputee, blind, deaf, autism, PTSD, ADHD, and depression.  Some artists have multiple diagnoses.

• 8 artists are BIPOC.

• 4 artists are LGBTQIA+.

• 1 artist is a refugee.

• 1 artist is plus size.

In selecting our creative collaborators, which include videographers, photographers, musicians, etc. I prioritize hiring creatives who are disabled, BIPOC, LGBTQIA+.

Members of Infinite Flow Kids, our youth dance company have also engaged with leadership activities. For example, Karen Dutko, a recent graduate of Infinite Flow Kids who was born with muscular dystrophy, co-presented with me at a pitch competition at the UCLA Anderson School of Management (pictured).  We won a $2000 grant and were awarded Best Project in Diversity & Inclusion. 

I am currently in the process of further diversifying our board to reflect the intersectionality of historically marginalized identities represented amongst our artists.

In 2006, while a college student, I suffered a spinal stroke that paralyzed me from the neck down.  2 months later, I walked out of the hospital but was still “paralyzed” on the inside.  The stroke triggered years of trauma from Anti-Asian discrimination, body shaming, rejection as a ballet dancer, sexual assault from a dance teacher who didn’t believe in me, etc.  In 2010, I returned to dancing through discovering ballroom dancing, and in 2012, I moved to Los Angeles to have a fresh start to my dance career.  But I found myself again not fitting the box of the “Hollywood dancer.”  

After feeling like the “other” throughout my life, I realized I wasn’t alone, and developed deep empathy towards others who also feel excluded. This led me to create Infinite Flow and to my mission to create a world without boxes, where every individual enjoys a sense of belonging and is celebrated for their unique qualities.

I currently live with PTSD, an invisible disability, while my team is mostly composed of artists and creatives who are disabled and/or identify with other historically marginalized identities.  Our diverse lived experiences collectively inform our work and mission.

Due to Covid-19, all of our activities, which included performances, dance classes, school assemblies, and community events got canceled.  

It was devastating, but as a leader of a company of disabled artists, who hack their lives daily to adapt to a world that lacks accessibility, I also saw this pandemic as an opportunity to innovate and “turn crisis into creativity”. 

One way we pivoted was turning our in-person school assembly program into a 47-minute short film: Scoops of Inclusion.  A couple of video references:

• 2-minute overview

• 1-minute video students sharing what they learned

• Short excerpt

In 2017, a local elementary school invited us to perform at their school.  Raving reviews were followed by 30+ schools inquiring for assemblies, but only 3 schools had a school assembly budget.  Late 2019, I led a crowdfunding campaign to raise money for sponsored assemblies and was invited on to Good Morning America.  After our segment, I got hundreds of messages requesting school assemblies. It was flattering but I recognized that we would need a different approach to serve the 90,000 US elementary schools.  A silver lining: Scoops of Inclusion opened the possibility to serve an infinite number of schools, youth, and families.

Speaking:

• 4-min Speaker Reel 
• CECP (Corporate Executives for Corporate Purpose) Conference Virtual Talk (May 2021)
• NBCUniversal Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month Virtual Talk (May 2021)

TV:

• Good Morning America 3rd Hour
• CBS2/KCAL9 News
• PBS SoCal Holiday Celebration 2019
• PBS SoCal Holiday Celebration 2018

Short Documentary + Other Media:

• adidas International Women’s Day 2020 x Refinery 29
• Community Voices from Facebook - Shared by Sheryl Sandberg, COO Facebook
• Now This News
• Marie Foleo - Marie TV Interview

NOTE: I have more links to media, but have selected those which are fairly recent and/or represent me well.

I intend to use the funding in the following ways:

• Fund our first multi-city tour (3 cities), where at each city we organize public performances, community flashmobs, school assemblies, and training workshops for dance educators, artists, and creatives.  We have received hundreds of messages asking for this already.  This initial tour will be the equivalent of a MVP (minival viable product) where we develop programming, create buzz, and get feedback, so we can acquire the resources and funding needed to continue touring.

• Expand our elementary school assembly program, both virtually and in person, through cultivating an inaugural national cohort of 30 ambassadors (10 education professionals, 10 parents, 10 youth) who are passionate about working with us to spread our school assembly programs, with the idea to be able to exponentially grow this ambassador community.

• Expand and upgrade our consent creation efforts, which may include regular online programming as well as shooting a pilot episode of a tv show which we then shop to major networks.

• Ideate and create an “x-factor” product or service that we have yet explored, which simultaneously generates revenue while also contributing to systemic change. 

• Hire necessary personnel. 

I am open to feedback.

Kaiser Permanente: We are currently partnering with Kaiser Permanente for a company-wide virtual film screening of Scoops of Inclusion followed by a post-film cast panel discussion.  This event is scheduled for October and has the potential to reach 200,000 households. Partnership funds will be used to further grow our school assembly program.

Microsoft Flipgrid: Flipgrid by Microsoft, is a "simple, free, and accessible video discussion experience for learners and families".  Infinite Flow is a Flipgrid Discovery Partner, where educators and learners have access to our lesson plans targeted to elementary school children.

Prominent Artist Collaboration Short Film: We are currently at the beginning stages of producing a new concept short film with a prominent visual artist (name to remain confidential for this public portion of my application). 

Vetting post-pandemic solidarity flashmob partners: Covid-19 restrictions pending, I am currently in conversation with a couple of brands to partner on a post-pandemic solidarity flashmob.

Reference Materials:

• Corporate partners deck: Something I send towards the beginning of building relationships with corporations.